National Harbor, Maryland – Ken Martin, the chair of Minnesota’s arm of the Democratic party, will become the new leader of the Democratic National Committee after winning during the first round of voting as the party attempts to rebound from a challenging election cycle.
In his acceptance speech, Martin looked to unify the party after a somewhat contentious chair race.
“The fight’s not in here. The fight is for our values. The fight is for working people. The fight right now is against Donald Trump and the billionaires who bought this country,” Martin said.
The DNC chair position is primarily technical and behind the scenes: They help raise money for the party, manage the party’s top-level infrastructure and organize coordinated efforts among the Democratic state parties. The race has been primarily focused on how severely the party should react to widespread 2024 losses, especially when it comes to regaining the support of working class voters.
Saturday’s election represented Democrats’ first major answer to the 2024 presidential election that saw the party lose the White House, Senate and fail to retake the House.
The tumultuous election cycle has sent the party reeling and essentially without a singular party leader as Democrats search for a winning message and vision ahead of the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.
Six candidates ended up running on Saturday to lead the DNC, including former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler and Martin, the leader of Minnesota’s arm of the Democratic Party. Faiz Shakir, the former presidential campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 effort was also a contender.
Martin won the chair race with 246.5 votes, compared to 134.5 for Wikler, 44 for O’Malley and 2 for Shakir.
Without a Democratic president in the White House, the new chair is expected to have broad influence in the years to come. And despite tensions in the race becoming more heated in recent weeks, the DNC leadership race was focused very little on ideology, evidenced by the lack of marquee names that would likely be known to an average voter.
Protesters interrupted the meeting ahead of the vote, reflecting some of the simmering divisions that troubled the party in 2024 and linger after President Trump’s presidential victory.
Martin headed into Saturday with a large number of party endorsements from the field of Democrats who had a vote in the contest. But Wikler was able to tout notable support from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Those prominent names, however, did not keep Martin from winning on the first ballot Saturday.
Hunter Woodall is a political editorial producer for CBS News. He covered the 2020 New Hampshire primary for The Associated Press and has also worked as a Kansas statehouse reporter for The Kansas City Star and the Washington correspondent for Minnesota’s Star Tribune.
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